Cambodia to bolster ‘security’ with 4,500 new cops

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Cambodia to bolster ‘security’ with 4,500 new cops

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia's National Police will bolster its forces with the addition of thousands of new officers by the end of the year, it was revealed yesterday, a recruitment drive rights groups were quick to bill as an attempt by the ruling party to shore up loyalty among the ranks, The Phnom Penh Post reported.


More than 4,500 new recruits are to be added to the force by September, in order to “keep public order” and for “society’s security”, according to a new sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday and made public a day later.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said yesterday that the recruitment drive was needed to freshen the ranks, as many older cops had recently retired or died.

And while the new recruits will fill a variety of roles, an unspecified number are destined to join the ranks of the Kingdom’s riot police, he said.

Sopheak insisted, however, that Cambodia’s security forces remained politically neutral and would serve the government of the day.

But rights groups yesterday, while conceding a nationwide spike in violent crime, were quick to cast doubt over the independence of the security services.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, yesterday described the Interior Ministry’s declaration that the country’s police force was neutral as “laughable”, saying via email that the government had no intention of professionalising what acts as an independent security force.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/content/150770

-- Thai PBS 2016-01-13

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